My day is complete
Posted on 09/11/2011 12:25:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I said here last night that the California GOP audience cheering the announcement that Texas has executed 234 condemned murderers under Rick Perry was a vile, repulsive thing.
Even when I was for capital punishment, I believed this.
Justice may require execution, but we should never rejoice in taking the life of another human being. At best, capital punishment is a necessary evil. I quit believing in capital punishment when I became convinced that the state is not trustworthy to use this power responsibly.
It happened about 10 years ago, when it emerged that a forensic scientist in Oklahoma whose testimony had been key to many convictions, including capital convictions, was actually quite incompetent. I lost track of the story, so I don't know if any of the prisoners executed thanks in part to her testimony were later exonerated. Even if they hadn't been, the fact that men were sent to their death based on the expert testimony of an incompetent scientist is chilling.
In Texas, If you are a conservative inclined to trust Rick Perry's remarks about its soundness, I invite you to read the New Yorker's long report about the Cameron Todd Willingham case. When this became a controversy in Texas, Perry went out of his way to block an official inquiry into the facts. I don't believe this hurt him, either. People have a strong need to believe in capital punishment, and they will accept anything that allows them to support it with an untroubled conscience.
I understand why people believe in capital punishment.
Personally, I believe that if you take a life cold-bloodedly, you should have to forfeit your life. But I do not believe that the government is capable of delivering the ultimate punishment in a fair, accurate manner, 100 percent of the time.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearreligion.org ...
My day is complete
Isn’t he the guy who wrote about “crunchy cons”, or conservatives who shopped at Whole Foods, a few years ago?
I guess Msr Dreher would not appreciate my idea of hooking up the electric chair to “The Clapper.”
No one is gleeful about it.
Justice is served by it though.
To maintain the life of a brutal killer devalues the life of his victim.
Leno braced Cheney on waterboarding KSM.To Jay and the author of the above saccharine, glutinous moral mess, let's ask Danny Pearl.
Justice doesn't start with the self-esteem of the murderer.
Hence the cheers for Perry's plain talk.
And if he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. / And if he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. / Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood, wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death. / The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him.It's the government's responsibility to act as the "revenger of blood". Shirking that responsibility has led to the kind of liberal chaos we are witness to in these times. Maybe the problem is with leaders that won't turn to God in matters where the judgment of humans is too flawed? See Deuteronomy 17.
—Numbers 35:16-19
Actually God commanded capital punishment. And this was before DNA testing.
Some people just need killin.
I suppose that if that is taken out of context some of the many theologians, I use that term respectfully, may take it upon themselves to correct me.
Exactly. The cheers were for liberalism being thwarted in their coddling to murderers. The cheers were for Texas executing these killers despite national pressure from these sappy fools
Justice for those who are murdered means execution, not 20-30 years or a lifetime behind bars. I am interested in closure and justice for the victim’s family. Execution=closure
That forensic scientist you’re thinking about worked, I believe, for ASCLD/LAB. American Society of Crime Lab Directors. It is an outfit chaired by Ken Melson...Obama’s pick as ATF director in 2009 and the guy who oversaw Fast and Furious! Click on the link below for the story.
...so I don’t know ...
That was the only believeable part of the opinion.
RE: when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
Just be sure that you are punishing the RIGHT wicked person. I think that was the point of the article.
Their moral compass is 180 degree's off.
Maybe the audience was cheering for a system that brings certain justice that can’t be warped by liberal judges? And was Rod happy when Osama bin Laden was shot? Or did he get a tear in his eye for another lost human life? Get off the high horse Rod. And I say this as someone who is against the death penalty.
They were reacting to the asinine question of, “How do you sleep at night” by Brian Williams. Why do we go to these forums to get bashed by the liberal mediots.
Pray for America
RE: Recent execution in Tx a few months ago of a creep who raped then smashed a huge stone on a 14 year old girls head. They found her also with a stick up her vagina. That rodent lived 15 years after that horrendous crime before being executed as he deserved.
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What about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham (as pointed out in the article), who to his dying day insisted that he was innocent, and who the New Yorker claims now has evidence that could have exonerated him?
I have no problem with it. The people executed had no shame in executing an innocent.
Since Obamacare, I have even less sympathy. If you can condemn someone to death for being sick, why the heck should I care about a murdering convict?
—that situation in Oklahoma, IIRC, caused Mark Fuhrman to have serious doubts about execution-—
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